What I did instead

So we arrived at LAX on June 29 at roughly 11:30 am. After making our way through a terribly slow customs line, we then said good-byes in a terribly slow manner, lingering over hugs and tears with much sadness.

I was supposed to go to lunch with Marissa, but we couldn’t find a Chili’s in the terminal we were in. So, knowing that Holland, Brandy and a few others had gone to find lunch, I hugged and said good-bye to Marissa, Colin, Adam and Emily, happily thinking that I still had several other J Squad-ers to spend time with.

This turned out to be a bust, as I could never find any other World Racers. When I went to Terminal 4, I was told there was no food,  that I should go to Terminal 3. The people at Terminal 3 told me the same thing: to go to Terminal 4, where all the food was. When I asked a man for directions, he said there was no Chili’s at the airport, but that if I had time, he could take me to the one on Central Boulevard (or somewhere) and that he’d even pay. Whaaat? I quickly said “Nothankyou” and hurried away. Also, that beautiful afternoon I was waiting for? L.A. was COLD that day! I was shivering walking between terminals. (My expectations are still being broken!)

So I was wandering about, wondering where everyone could be when I saw a Korean man trying desperately to maintain his grip on the young sleeping boy in his arms and the three bags he held, all dangling precariously from his arms and hands. I knew in my mind that I had two choices: to walk by this man like everyone else, or to offer him some of the kindness that I have received everywhere I went while on the Race, to show him an act of love. I offered to carry his bags on my buggy for him and he gladly set the bags down. I thought he knew where he was going, so I followed, with him glancing back worriedly every once in a while to make sure I hadn’t made off with his bags.

When we had passed two terminals, he glanced at me. “Uh, Korea,” he said. “You are going to Korea?” I asked. “Incheon Airport,” he answered. Since luck would have it that we’d had an 8-hour layover at Incheon Airport, I knew this was near Seoul. So, thinking that he needed an international flight, I steered him back a few terminals.

“Okay, so here is where you’ll get on the plane,” I told him. In limited English, he then told me that he was from Korea, had just arrived, and was trying to go to San Francisco. So we went to the terminal housing in-country Delta flights. Only, upon arriving there, I realized that he was really looking for this little boy’s mom, who he couldn’t find. The little boy was getting fidgety, so I offered to hold him, and he thrust the boy into my arms. (Um, yes, my arms- the arms of a person who isn’t very good at consoling children…). I got the boy to calm down by singing “The Wheels on the Bus” to him, so when another Korean man with a baby suddenly appeared and the man I was with started following him, I didn’t question it, but rather just followed, singing all the way. I saw the man who’d offered to buy me Chili’s again, too, and weirdly enough, he wasn’t at all thrown off by the fact that I had acquired an Asian baby and made the offer for Chili’s again. The two men, the two babies and I ended up at a terminal we’d already been to, but it also contained the Korean Air counter, so the workers talked to the two men and got things figured out. (One worker asked me, “Are you the mother?” to which I had to awkwardly reply, “Oh, no. Um, I carried his bags?”)

But having things figured out and finding where the “mother” is are quite different things. We ended up waiting for about 2.5 hours while calls were made. An employee explained to me that the two little boys were being adopted by families in the States, and these men were escorting them to the families. I was so happy for the boys! “You’re getting a new family today!” I sang to them as I bounced them or held their hands as they tried to walk.

I also thought I would be nice and get some milk for the little boy when the man, Kim, mentioned that he needed some. Instead, Kim ended up making me drink an entire glassful of it (yuck) and then pointed to the trash can, took the cup from my hand and threw it in the trash receptacle. I was bewildered.

But THEN Kim really threw me for a loop. “I am Christian,” he told me, proudly pulling out his thick Bible. “And you?” “Yes, me too!” I happily told him. He asked if I was Baptist or Protestant and talked a little about being a Christian.

I thought that my day would be full of fun and laughs with Racers. Instead, it was full of fun and laughs with two babies on their first day in the United States. I had wondered how I would find a way to “do” ministry every day when I got back to the States, but I found it’s not so hard: we just can’t pass up opportunities presented to us. As Anna once said in a blog, “Americans have watches, but Africans have the time.” I want to be more like that- having the time to help others.

And I met a fellow Christian in doing so.